doi: 10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115137. Two key questions lie at the core of my research: "Given that a problem exists, what are its underlying processes?" The Psychology of Self-Defense: Self-Affirmation Theory by David Sherman & Geoffrey Cohen. Self-affirmation theory is based on the idea that we are motivated to maintain our self-worth in the face of threats (Sherman & Cohen, 2006). 0000002186 00000 n Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 1-7, Heine, S. J., & Lehman, D. R. (1997). Like other interventions and experiences, self-affirmations can have lasting benefits when they touch off a cycle of adaptive potential, a positive feedback loop between the self-system and the social system that propagates adaptive outcomes over time. Science 330:123437, Haines J, Neumark-Sztainer D, Wall M, Story M. 2007. Self-affirmation will reduce the relationship between feelings of shame and financial withdrawal. 1999, Sherman & Cohen . Wrote the paper: JDC JMD WMPK PRH JML. [g$ ' UR$g qM7[ HD>YoEMLyoV;-E^2/'7 Having a broad viewpoint diminishes the perceived threat, allowing individuals to act less defensively and more effectively. In the first step of the mediation analysis, self-affirmation increased positive affect (as described above). [3] For example, self-integrity can take the form of being independent, intelligent, a helpful member of a society, part of a family, and/or part of a group. Self-affirmation theory contends that if individuals reflect on values that are personally relevant to them, they are less likely to experience distress and react defensively when confronted with information that contradicts or threatens their sense of self. 144 RAT items have been normed for difficulty [17], and pilot testing indicated that our undergraduate sample population can solve all easy RAT items. Engaging in spontaneous self-affirmation was related to greater happiness, hopefulness, optimism, subjective health, and personal health efficacy, and less anger and sadness. Sherman, D. K., & Cohen, G. L. (2006). - "The Psychology of Selfdefense: SelfAffirmation Theory" Skip to search form Skip to main content Skip to account menu. When we do this, it helps us realize that our self-worth is not contingent on whatever negative feedback we just got (Sherman & Cohen, 2006). Some studies have found that positive mood brings about similar reductions in defensiveness as self-affirmations. Values that participants wrote about by affirmation condition and chronic stress level (as determined by median split). Self-affirmation improves problem-solving under stress. Houghton Mifflin, Hunt, R. A. In laboratory experiments, psychologists induce self-affirmation in participants in order to investigate the influence of self-affirmation on individuals' well-being. The present study builds on previous research showing that self-affirmation has stress protective effects in performance settings [9], [12], [13], [15], providing an initial indication that self-affirmation can buffer the effects of chronic stress on actual problem-solving in performance settings. Provide examples of ways that people attempt to increase and maintain their self-esteem. Metacognition allows you to connect the dots, see the big picture, self-evaluate and self-monitor. High levels of acute and chronic stress are known to impair problem-solving and creativity on a broad range of tasks. Tchiki Davis, Ph.D., is a consultant, writer, and expert on well-being technology. 0000003708 00000 n Results from studies provide support for the idea that when individuals complete an activity that affirms their self-integrity they are less defensive and more accepting of information that is potentially threatening. Hbd`ad`ddtL) 4ONLN1462 a!CG2bX0v/b`fdH**4204p/,L(QX`hii_Z VVPZZTXZ`dacbd rRR0,E^` rD &O7`RDr^`5`l6VLJ fWH DjD3MA ] "$3)X2H 8?cu b This site needs JavaScript to work properly. Do messages about health risks threaten the self? However, participants who completed the two values essays did not show an increase in catecholamine levels from baseline to their midterm.[12]. Following the self-affirmation writing task, as a manipulation check, participants were asked to respond to two items assessing how important the value they wrote about was, using a 6-point response scale (1=Strongly Disagree to 6=Strongly Agree). Next, they wrote about their first ranked value and why it was important to them (self-affirmation condition) or their ninth ranked value and why it might be important to others (control condition) [12]. [1] [3] Defensive reactions attempt to minimize the threat in order to preserve the sense of self. In one study investigating the effects of self-affirmation on stress response, undergraduate participants completed the Trier social stress test, a standardized laboratory paradigm used to induce stress in participants. Results showed that self-affirmation improved problem-solving performance in underperforming chronically stressed individuals. . However, the defensive reaction can impede more adaptive ways to solve the problem (like engaging in problem-solving or changing unhealthy behaviors). Socially Optimized Learning in a Virtual Environment: Reducing Risky S. Participants who completed the values list had significantly lower stress response than individuals in the control condition, as indicated by a lower cortisol response in affirmed participants compared to participants who did not complete the self-affirmation condition. 213 0 obj << /Linearized 1 /O 215 /H [ 949 1237 ] /L 505870 /E 21823 /N 60 /T 501491 >> endobj xref 213 26 0000000016 00000 n In the present study, we test whether a brief self-affirmation can buffer the negative impacts of chronic stress on problem-solving. Notably, we also did not observe a significant self-affirmation condition time interaction (F(2, 67)=.43 p=.65, 2=.01) or a condition time chronic stress interaction (F(2, 67)=1.15 p=.32, 2=.03) (Figure 2), indicating that there were no differential effects of self-affirmation (or the self-affirmation chronic stress interaction) on heart rate. Psychology Today 2023 Sussex Publishers, LLC. In social Expand 1 PDF View 3 excerpts, cites background Past Perfect (ed): Future Nostalgia and the Fight Against Trump's America in Netflix's Hollywood An official website of the United States government. Defense Mechanisms in Psychology Explained (+ Examples) / Defense (1997). Often these affirmations are used to shift the way we're thinking about ourselves to be more positive. PDF The Psychology of Self Defense: Self Affirmation Theory trailer << /Size 239 /Info 205 0 R /Root 214 0 R /Prev 501480 /ID[<25b6ff0975f36615fc50a5b813e1f2e2><25b6ff0975f36615fc50a5b813e1f2e2>] >> startxref 0 %%EOF 214 0 obj << /Type /Catalog /Pages 207 0 R /PageLabels 204 0 R >> endobj 237 0 obj << /S 1621 /L 1714 /Filter /FlateDecode /Length 238 0 R >> stream We also diminish the importance of things we have failed at or things we're not very good at. Consistent with hypotheses, we observed a significant main effect of chronic stress on RAT performance (=.45, t(72)=2.75, p=.008), such that participants with higher stress in the last month had lower problem-solving performance. Another limitation of our study is that we measured chronic stress using a self-report measure, and this measure was collected at the end of our study session (although there were no experimental (self-affirmation manipulation) effects on chronic stress scores). It holds that individuals are motivated to maintain self-integrity: a sense that one is a person of worth, morally adequate and effective at making changes in one's life. (2006). Self-affirmation theory asserts that the overall goal of the self-system is to protect an image of its self-integrity, of its moral and adaptive adequacy. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0062593, Editor: Jos Csar Perales, Universidad de Granada, Spain, Received: September 28, 2012; Accepted: March 26, 2013; Published: May 1, 2013. People, it seems, can use a negative stereotype as a cognitively justifiable way of putting other people down, to make themselves feel good. CiteSeerX The psychology of self-defense: self-affirmation theory Such self-affirmations, by fulfilling the need to protect self-integrity in the face of threat, can enable people to deal with threatening events and information without resorting to defensive bias. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Epub 2018 Oct 15. Outline the benefits of having high self-esteem. [11] Half of participants completed two values essays in the two weeks leading up to their midterm examination. PLoS ONE 8(5): hbbd```b``="SdT d As shown in Figure 1, self-affirmation (compared to the control condition) improved the RAT problem solving performance of underperforming high chronic stress individuals, but had a minimal impact on the performance of participants low in chronic stress. Whistling Vivaldi and Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us. Future studies should therefore experimentally test whether social evaluation is a necessary condition for self-affirmation problem-solving effects. Panel A depicts the results for participants low in chronic stress, and Panel B depicts the results for participants high in chronic stress, as determined by median split. [4], One of the most common ways to induce self-affirmation is to have participants write about a personally relevant value. The ethnic composition of the sample was predominantly Caucasian (55%), followed by Asian-American (16.5%), Other (12%), African-American (9.5%), mixed-race (5.5%), and Latino/Hispanic (1.5%). The second step in testing mediation consists of evaluating whether the mediating variable (positive affect) predicts the outcome variable (problem-solving performance) when entered simultaneously with the predictor variable (self-affirmation condition). In both cases, they rated 11 values (i.e., art, business, friends/family) in order of personal importance. broad scope, and wide readership a perfect fit for your research every time. 38, pp. Affirmation of personal values buffers neuroendocrine and psychological stress responses. Focus on the positive rather than the negative. After completing individual difference measures, participants were debriefed, compensated, and excused. Accessibility %PDF-1.3 % The psychology of self-defense: Self-affirmation theory. 2013. Self-affirmation reduces biased processing of health-risk information. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 183-242. Moreover, until now it has been unclear whether the stress buffering benefits of self-affirmation translate into improved performance outcomes on actual problem solving tasks. 13. The Psychology of Self-Defense: Self-Affirmation Theory 3. Health Psychology, 28(5), 554, Steele CM. ), Advances in experimental social psychology(Vol. Concern with weight has similar effects of stress in that it can cause psychological distress, poor eating, and weight gain. (1968). Second, our study suggests that self-affirmation may be effective at boosting performance in academic tasks requiring associative processing and creativity, particularly for students who experience stress on such tasks [34]. Despite many studies showing that acute and chronic stressors can impair problem-solving [1], [2], [4], we know little about stress management and coping approaches for buffering stress during problem-solving [36]. Participants then write about the value they ranked as most important and how it is meaningful to them for 5 minutes.[6]. Enhancing a brief writing intervention to combat stereotype threat among middle-school students. J Pers Soc Psychol. [24][25] In contrast, several studies fail to detect any effect of self-affirmation on mood, suggesting self-affirmation does not operate via increases in positive mood. Self-affirmation theory (SAT; Sherman & Cohen, 2006) is a socialpsychological theory that can inform this topic. The psychology of self-affirmation: Sustaining the integrity of the self. MeSH Psychological Science. Participants heart rate and mean arterial pressure were measured at 2-minute intervals using an automatic sphygmomanometer and inflatable cuff on their left arm (Dinamap Carescape V100, General Electric Company, Finland) during three different periods: an eight-minute baseline period, followed by the RAT (about 9 minutes), and a five-minute recovery period. Threats and afrmations arise from the self's fundamental motive: to be morally and adaptively adequate, good and efcacious. 'D7%XD G@^0e^e^`6o?a_? Before Self-affirmation theory is based on the idea that we are motivated to maintain our self-worth in the face of threats (Sherman & Cohen, 2006). Prayer, self-affirmation, and distraction improve recovery from short Steele, CM (1988) The psychology of self-affirmation: . Reducing threat responses to help-seeking information: Influences of self-affirmations and reassuring information. Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom, Affiliation: Self-affirmation theory. Examination of how video games can also increase players' willingness to internalize important but threatening self-information suggests that while players who value video game success as part of their identity may reap benefits from video game play after a self-threat, those who do not value such success may experience more harmful effects. Financial shame spirals: How shame intensifies financial hardship Consistent with our self-affirmation stress buffering hypothesis, these main effects were qualified by a significant chronic stress self-affirmation interaction on RAT problem-solving performance (=.35, t(72)=2.09, p=.041). Like Steinbeck, we have wondered why some people are more resilient to the vicissitudes of life than others, that is, why their sense of worth and the psychological states that vary with it (e.g., OVERVIEW The O.J. Semantic Scholar is a free, AI-powered research tool for scientific literature, based at the Allen Institute for AI. Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 38, pp. Then, say it to yourself using these guidelines: Finding ways to maintain our self-worth is a worthwhile endeavor. Participants then completed a state mood adjective checklist assessing state positive mood (5 items: proud, content, joyful, love, and grateful; study =.84) and state negative mood (3 items: sad, angry, scared; study =.65) (PANAS-X; [22], [23]). Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: JDC. Some studies have observed increases in self-esteem following self-affirmation,[27] whereas other have found no effect on self-esteem. For some, this has been a positive experience in which the values, customs and institutions they believe in are the, A theorybased intervention known as selfaffirmation provides people with the opportunity to affirm a sense of selfintegrity, a global image of moral and adaptive adequacy, at moments of, Current Directions in Psychological Science, The question of the antecedents of prejudicial responses has a long history that includes contributions of historical, structural, cultural, and psychological factors. Affirmations in Sport - IResearchNet - Psychology [1] Roles include responsibilities a person has, such as being a parent, friend, student, or professional. Although self-affirmation condition participants wrote somewhat longer essays on average (M=68.79 words, SD=25.9) than did control condition participants (M=60.34, SD=26.9), this difference was not statistically significant (F(1,72)=1.63, p=.21). Advances in Experimental Social Psychology. HUoLg\j10PVb (M]n&eYTu~i&R\u`e-e;={ 2 5 pq B@`:DvTV##s-{JkqHm.w|M6h?! Clipboard, Search History, and several other advanced features are temporarily unavailable. To test whether there was differential task engagement in the self-affirmation and control conditions using this physiological measure, we conducted a repeated measures ANCOVA to assess change in heart rate over time between conditions (In order to run a parallel ANCOVA analyses as our primary analysis, the heart rate and mean arterial pressure analyses were run with the chronic stress variable entered as a two-level between subjects variable (low vs. high stress), as determined by median split). Instead of having one self-concept (e.g., I am a good parent), self-affirmation theory posits that individuals flexibly define who they are using various roles (e.g., I am a good parent, child, and worker). As we anticipated, self-affirmation elicited greater error responsiveness than did nonaffirmation, as indexed by the error-related negativity, a neural signal of error monitoring. New York: Academic Press. The psychology of self-defense: Self-affirmation theory. Culture, dissonance, and self-affirmation. Threats against a person's self-integrity are events or messages that imply an individual is not good or adequate in a personally relevant domain. Rumination is when people cannot stop fixating on a particular thought. All predictor variables were mean-centered prior to being entered in multiple regression equations. HWrl 7aylcOFI\,@ m TMi!>yx={u~|GIrg82wa$l:C',r"#kqO1o$tF&LI7'.%e_IlI}q7IJ'a_rZ|ilvR(Ir?#qd/?WV?{o_G::/_tI^_,|#\d8aKL^^]_/\u: When Self-Affirmations Reduce Defensiveness: Timing Is Key For example, we tend to believe that we are responsible for positive outcomes but that we are not responsible for negative outcomes. Heart rate was included because it is a useful indirect marker for task engagement [24], [25], which may be affected by our self-affirmation manipulation. Future studies using other measures for assessing chronic stress (e.g., selecting chronically stressed vs. matched control groups) [4] would therefore be useful. Get the help you need from a therapist near youa FREE service from Psychology Today. [5] More research is needed to understand how self-affirmations decrease stress responses. For individuals in the self-affirmation condition, high-stress individuals performed equally as well as low-stress individuals. The Psychology of Selfdefense: SelfAffirmation Theory The present review highlights both connections with other disciplines and lessons for a social psychological understanding of intervention and change. These self-affirmations can involve family, friends, volunteer work, religion, art and music, or other activities that are central to how we see ourselves (Sherman & Cohen, 2006). (2002). (2014). If individuals feel relatively positive about themselves in one domain, they are willing and able to tolerate a threat to their self-integrity in another domain. A., M. A., Psychology) The Tug-of-War Within: Oppositional Affirmation, Parent Versus Professional Identification, and Gender Thesis directed by Professor Bernadette Park The, Self-affirmation theory proposes that individuals possess a flexible self-system, such that they can respond to threats in one domain of life by affirming self-worth in other domains. One of the most important implications of contemporary research on self-affirmation theory involves its demonstration that seemingly small interventions can have large effects, if they are attuned to psychological processes of self-integrity maintenance. In her article on the stereotype inoculation model, Nilanjana Dasgupta (this issue) makes a powerful case that numbers shape the psychology of women and minorities in fields related to science, A persistent puzzle emerges from a review of the psychological research literature on how people defend the self from potentially threatening information and events: People can be adamantly, Smith, J. Allegra (B. First, we tested whether chronic stress is related to poorer problem-solving performance. Conspicuous consumption versus utilitarian ideals: How different levels of power shape consumer behavior Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (2009) C.A. Instead, they can reestablish self-integrity through affirmations of alternative domains of self-worth unrelated to the provoking threat. Indeed, these protective adaptations may lead to rationalizations and even distortions of reality. The ultimate goal of the self is to protect an image of its self-integrity, morality and adequacy. [20], Individualist and collectivist cultures place different levels of importance on belonging to in-groups, and it is thought that this may vary the effects of self-affirmation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26(9), 1046-1058, Koole, S. L., Smeets, K., Van Knippenberg, A., & Dijksterhuis, A. Simpson J. In social, 1 to many Americans reevaluating the kind of country they thought they lived in. Previously, such effects had been viewed as evidence of a basic motivation for psychological consistency; people want to see their attitudes as consistent with their actions. How people maintain the integrity of the self, especially when it comes under threat, forms the focus of self-afrmation theory (Steele 1988; see also Aronson et al. Rucker et al. Self-affirmation theory posits that the goal of the self is to protect ones self-image when threatened and that one way to do this is through affirmation of valued sources of self-worth [6], [7]. As a manipulation check, we compared the ratings that participants in different conditions made about their value writing activity immediately after completing the writing activity. There is thus some fungibility in the sources of self-integrity. Claude Steele originally popularized self-affirmation theory in the late 1980s,[1][2] and it remains a well-studied theory in social psychological research.[3][4]. Building on previous research showing that self-affirmation can buffer stress, we tested whether an experimental manipulation of self-affirmation improves problem-solving performance in chronically stressed participants. (2005). This research was approved by the Carnegie Mellon University Institutional Review Board. Similarly, values affirmation decreased the achievement gap for college students from low socioeconomic status[16] and for women in introductory physics courses. APA Dictionary of Psychology It is possible that there may have been significant differences in how participants ranked their #1 value across study conditions, which could indicate a failure of randomization. A major insight of this theory involves the notion that although people try to maintain specific self-images (such as being a good student or being a good family member), that is not their primary motivation. For the New Age practice of repeating positive self-statements, see, People try to protect their self-integrity, Drives to protect the sense of self are often defensive, Actions that promote one's values can reduce perceived threat, Paradigms used to study self-affirmation theory, Factors that influence the effectiveness of self-affirmations, Factors underlying the effects of self-affirmation theory, Steele, C. M. (1988).

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